Chapter 18: A True Warrior

He woke up with a jerk as cold water flowed down his face on to the ground. Lance jumped up as he grasped his swords and looked around for any enemies but he only found small tiger cub sitting at the feet of the tree.

Then something seemed to strike him as he looked down at his chest, his body looked as good as new. The wound in his memory seemed to have never existed, but his torn clothes revealed a different story. He looked toward the branch on which the fruit was hanging before but was missing now. It confirmed his suspicions as he looked toward the lounging cat again.

'Check your cultivation'

Lance turned his sight inwards as he sensed his improved cultivation, he had reached mid skin stage. But he wasn't very impressed as he had just consumed a spirit silver grade treasure.

"Is that it, mid skin stage? I expected more from a spirit silver grade fruit."

'Hmph, brat, do you think cultivation is a sprint? The higher you reach the harder it becomes to progress. Also, you do not understand, cultivation treasures like that fruit are very rare and always in demand. Such treasures may not increase your cultivation level much at once because your body cannot handle such a huge influx of energy at once. So, most of the energy is stored in your body for future uses. This energy not only helps in cultivation but also in battle. It can help you sustain your energy longer by supplementing it, but the main use is that after your body has adjusted to your cultivation level you will automatically advance to the next energy level. This will continue until the residues in your body are exhausted.'

"Hmm…. But then teacher said that she would give me a treasure that would help me reach the peak skin stage at once, how would that be possible?", he asked as he remembered his teacher's words.

'A few… special treasures exist which help temper and adjust your body, so they can promote your cultivation directly. But these treasures are at least of the spirit gold grade.'

His eyes went wide at the implications but he immediately put the though out of his mind. He had barely defeated an early skin stage cultivator even after employing his weapon mastery, granted he was injured but that was no excuse to his poor performance.

But this thought made him turn his attention towards the grizzly pile of heads. Even though he had just added a head to the pile he didn't feel much of anything. He briefly worried about his sanity but soon threw it out of his mind. Gong Yu had betrayed him and attacked first.

"Why didn't you stop Gong Yu's attack?", he asked as he again remembered the pain of being stabbed.

The cub looked at him contemptuously as he snorted, 'I diverted the spear from harming anything important, don't expect me babysit you. You are a cultivator, if you do not realize the cruelty of the cultivation world you will die even if your cultivation is high.'

"Is a lung not important!?", he ignored the rest of the sentence for now as he wanted to calm down a bit but he still kept it in his mind since he knew it was true.

The cub seemed to know what he was thinking, his expression revealed his contempt but still played along, 'As long as you don't immediately die, anything can be healed even a lost limb though that will take a spirit silver grade treasure.'

Lance opened his mouth but was cut off, 'Enough, now meditate under this tree. It will help you further your weapon mastery.'

Then he seemed to go back to sleep as Lance looked at him from the corner of his eyes.

'How can the damned little bastard still sleep after he spent the last few days lounging on my shoulder?', he cursed in his mind.

'This LITTLE LORD will sleep how much ever he wants. When you can defeat me in battle then you can talk.'

Lance went and sat cross-legged under the tree beside Cloud as if he hadn't heard anything. He cleared his mind as he placed the twin swords on his lap. He then slowly circulated the essence energy in his body at a pace that could go on even without his conscious intervention.

Then he thought about the battle, how his sword simply cut through the spear without any resistance. The sharpness of his sword was enough for him now, he instead concentrated on the fight. He could have fought better if he varied his moves like adding a few kicks in between instead of just attacking head on like a brute. He could have used feints and false moves to confuse his opponent.

Now that he thought about it, he realised that if his sword didn't cut through Gong Yu's spear then the fight could have gone very differently. Even though he was confident that he wouldn't be in any mortal danger as long as the lazy tiger was there, he still didn't want to depend on external help. It wasn't that the tiger didn't care about him, on the contrary he felt sincere affection from the little beast. The real reason was that he couldn't depend on someone else forever.

He felt his will waver because he was sure that as long as he said a word about his village's destruction, the general would disappear forever from the face of the empire. But as he remembered the helplessness from those tragedies, he felt his resolve firm up again. He would not depend on others to get his revenge, instead he would rip the general's head off with his own hands.

Lance seemed to enter a mysterious state as distracting thoughts disappeared and only his will remained. Cloud opened his eyes and looked at Lance then returned to his nap but a thought resounded in his mind.

'A true warrior…..'